You can probably tell based on my Game Collages that I agree the fuck out of it. Let's all make reverse backlogs!

This was such a weird and exhilarating run, first and foremost because I was using Narhan. I think he is adorable and I love his character but I just have no success with the guy compared to the other tank options, so it was awesome finally getting to see him come in clutch here. The equipment combo he had (chance to stun enemies that attack him/increase all stun odds and deal damage when an enemy is stunned) just did so much work and he shut Azar and the Program Master out of multiple big attacks over the course of the final boss fights. He literally stopped Program Master from using Eradicate and ending the run on the last turn before I killed him.

I also underinvested pretty severely in both characters and mana on this run, playing with only 6 (!) mana and not one character above level 5. Instead I put all of those extra resources into Lucy draw skills while manipulating Trisha's Focus mechanic with Shadow Dance and skill upgrades that helped allies boost her stacks and cheat out big Shadow Raid crits for free. Was super satisfying playing such a strategic deck and with all of those draw skills I never ended up in those miserable moments where Azar is beating you down and fucking with your hand and you just can't get enough new cards in there. The Lucy skill "Pick Up" did WORK here, that skill is outrageously good for a low-mana build if you use it properly.

Even though it's not the first time I've beaten the true final boss on Expert this was my favorite because I got to win with a lineup and build I'm not super familiar with as opposed to using my usual comfort team (the classic Pain lineup with Ilya, Miss Chain, Charon, Joey, etc.).

Sadly I do feel that I am finally "finishing" with Chrono Ark after putting in about 140 hours over the past few years. I think I have just about reached the limit of what I can explore in the game... it's always sad when this happens as it's really rare that a game can truly capture my heart in this way and make me want to play it over and over again. I'm so grateful to the devs for making something so special in a genre that is often depressingly unoriginal (every time I buy a new one and realize the entire game is just reskinned Slay the Spire mechanics I want to scream).

I know I plug it all the time but I can't recommend this game enough if you like deckbuilders and want something that is really, truly its own thing in a sea of Slay the Spire knockoffs and has a crazy hundred-hour story with multiple twists. Recommending this excellent video essay from a fellow Chrono Ark superfan and Cohost user (@MysticalMonkMusings) again:

progress in plantabi. for a game under ten dollars i'm genuinely shocked how much furniture and plants there are(i haven't even unlocked floors!), and the time scaler + magic orbs mean you can take it as fast or slow as you want.
also, ignore how much of a mess my second room is.. it's storage. i'll move some of it over to my recently unlocked third room eventually.

And this story involves mechanics and how RNG weapon design can take those mechanics and break the game. But first, background:

1: Fl4k has a first tier skill in the Hunter tree called Leave No Trace. On a 0.3 second cooldown, it gives you a 12/24/36% chance to return one bullet to your magazine

2: Leave No Trace works on a Per Projectile basis. This means that if your shot has two projectiles, it is a 36% chance applied to each projectile. Having more projectiles per shot increases your chances of it proccing and returning one bullet to your magazine beyond 36%, with diminishing returns.

3: Non-unique and non-Eridian-muzzle Torgue weapons fire gyrojets that either explode on contact, or stick to an enemy and detonate either on weapon reload or after ten seconds have passed since the last hit on that enemy. Each projectile stuck in an enemy increases damage to that enemy by varying amounts, but I don’t know if it’s additively or multiplicatively so I’m just going to assume additively.

4: I recently found a non-unique Torgue shotgun that shoots 18 projectiles per trigger pull, which is exceptionally high for any shotgun in the game, but especially Torgue shotguns since they’ve been balanced with the explosive damage in mind. Each stuck projectile increases damage dealt by 4%.

5: said Torgue shotgun consumes two ammo per shot, and has a magazine size of two, meaning that on Sticky fire mode, it has been balanced to immediately have all stuck projectiles detonate for the full intended damage output immediately after one shot. This is because when you empty your magazine, the game automatically has you reload your weapon, which, as per point 3, triggers all stuck projectiles to detonate.

6: However, Leave No Trace kicks in, and assuming that the spread is wide enough that on average I only manage to get half of the 18 projectiles to critically hit, at 36% chance per each of the 9 projectiles, this results in a 98.19856% actual chance for the skill to proc. Therefore it is almost guaranteed that on each properly aimed shot, one round of ammunition is returned to my magazine.

7: It should be noted that this is not “unlimited” ammo as each shot requires two rounds, and Leave No Trace only returns one to the magazine. This is resolved on the next trigger pull by consuming the one round currently in the magazine, as well as a second one from the ammo pool. However, the important buried lede is that this allows me to pull the trigger a second time without reloading. Which also has a 98.19856% chance to return one round to my magazine and prevent a forced reload, allowing me to pull the trigger a third time. You get the picture.

8: Now that I have pulled the trigger thrice and stuck 27 gyrojets into the enemy, each and every one of those gyrojets has had its explosion damage increased by 108%. Which is further still boosted by the fact that they still count as critical hits.

9: I don’t even need to stop at three trigger pulls, and can go on as long as my skill allows. After six or seven shots, there are too many stuck gyrojets for the game to bother detonating one-by-one, as is intended. Instead it just blows them up batch-by-batch. This is endgame-levels of damage at level 44 out of 72.

Done. Game broken. RIP any damage parsing software